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Add another question which crops up every now and again:

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"Why do I have very little free memory with few programs running?"
This commit is contained in:
Ben Smithurst 2000-07-18 19:03:21 +00:00
parent f631452350
commit c4ddbfb5fb
Notes: svn2git 2020-12-08 03:00:23 +00:00 
svn path=/head/; revision=7667
2 changed files with 46 additions and 2 deletions
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24
en_US.ISO8859-1/books/faq/book.sgml
View file

@ -13,7 +13,7 @@
</author>
</authorgroup>
<pubdate>$FreeBSD: doc/en_US.ISO_8859-1/books/faq/book.sgml,v 1.71 2000/07/16 18:06:44 ben Exp $</pubdate>
<pubdate>$FreeBSD: doc/en_US.ISO_8859-1/books/faq/book.sgml,v 1.72 2000/07/16 20:39:43 ben Exp $</pubdate>
<abstract>
<para>This is the FAQ for FreeBSD versions 2.X, 3.X, and 4.X. All entries
@ -8440,6 +8440,28 @@ morning after leaving it idle overnight.</para>
</answer></qandaentry>
<qandaentry>
<question>
<para>Why does &man.top.1; show very little free memory even
when I have very few programs running?</para>
</question>
<answer>
<para>The simple answer is that free memory is wasted
memory. Any memory that your programs don't actively
allocate is used within the FreeBSD kernel as disk
cache. The values shown by &man.top.1; labelled as
<literal>Inact</literal>, <literal>Cache</literal>, and
<literal>Buf</literal> are all cached data at different
aging levels. This cached data means the system does
not have to access a slow disk again for data it has
accessed recently, thus increasing overall performance.
In general, a low value shown for <literal>Free</literal>
memory in &man.top.1; is good, provided it is not
<emphasis>very</emphasis> low.</para>
</answer>
</qandaentry>
<qandaentry><question>
<para> Why use (what are) a.out and ELF executable formats?
</para></question><answer>

24
en_US.ISO_8859-1/books/faq/book.sgml
View file

@ -13,7 +13,7 @@
</author>
</authorgroup>
<pubdate>$FreeBSD: doc/en_US.ISO_8859-1/books/faq/book.sgml,v 1.71 2000/07/16 18:06:44 ben Exp $</pubdate>
<pubdate>$FreeBSD: doc/en_US.ISO_8859-1/books/faq/book.sgml,v 1.72 2000/07/16 20:39:43 ben Exp $</pubdate>
<abstract>
<para>This is the FAQ for FreeBSD versions 2.X, 3.X, and 4.X. All entries
@ -8440,6 +8440,28 @@ morning after leaving it idle overnight.</para>
</answer></qandaentry>
<qandaentry>
<question>
<para>Why does &man.top.1; show very little free memory even
when I have very few programs running?</para>
</question>
<answer>
<para>The simple answer is that free memory is wasted
memory. Any memory that your programs don't actively
allocate is used within the FreeBSD kernel as disk
cache. The values shown by &man.top.1; labelled as
<literal>Inact</literal>, <literal>Cache</literal>, and
<literal>Buf</literal> are all cached data at different
aging levels. This cached data means the system does
not have to access a slow disk again for data it has
accessed recently, thus increasing overall performance.
In general, a low value shown for <literal>Free</literal>
memory in &man.top.1; is good, provided it is not
<emphasis>very</emphasis> low.</para>
</answer>
</qandaentry>
<qandaentry><question>
<para> Why use (what are) a.out and ELF executable formats?
</para></question><answer>